The United States Experience with Economic Incentives in Environmental Pollution Control Policy

With the current high level of interest in economic incentive mechanisms for environmental management, it is useful to examine the record to date. Over the past 20 years, federal, state, and local authorities as well as many foreign nations have enacted a diverse array of environmental incentive mechanisms. This report presents one of the most comprehensive surveys available of these mechanisms both in the United States and other countries, but attempts to go beyond enumerating them by examining several key issues:

How well have these instruments performed?
What can be learned from the record that will assist in the formulation of new mechanisms?
How economically efficient or cost-effective are these mechanisms in achieving the goals of environmental management?
What have been their environmental effects?
Why is it that the theoretical gains from economic instruments seldom are observed in practice and what can be done to improve this record?

This report is an update and extension of a previous 1992 report, including many additional economic incentive instruments. A later and further updated version was issued in January, 2001. Links to the report records for both reports can be found under the report series listing above.
The report is divided into 11 sections as follows: